Official Luthiers Forum!

I've never had anything other than first rate service from LMI during the 15+ years I've been buying stuff from them. I like that virtually everything they sell is top notch professional quality.

+1^ Always great products and service. The web site may not have been cutting edge in terms of look and feel but I never had any trouble finding what I was looking for.

SM is better for electric guitar parts/hardware... LMI simply does not cater to that. SM is more for luthiers who does more repair than build, and LMI is the other way around.

The only trouble I have with LMI is that they charge higher for shipping than SM for the equivalent weight, plus I have to wait for them to quote shipping prices for international shipments whereas SM will tell you immediately so I can adjust my orders accordingly. Also I am not sure if it's the way LMI declares their custom form (I think they just write "guitar parts" rather than list everything like SM) but I keep getting charged a tariff on LMI stuff but never on SM stuff.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Yeh. SM has a wider selection of electric hardware and pickups, which is what I mainly build. I buy a lot of my hardware/tuners from them. But pickups and electronics I source elsewhere usually.
But if I want a fretboard, the only choices they have are ebony or rosewood. Rosewood and ebony get boring after a while. I like to try new woods for fingerboards. LMI has a much better selection of fretboard woods, as well as a larger selection of body and top woods. I source body/top woods locally as much as possible, but their selection is broader. The only time I order fretboard material from SM is if I'm using EIR, as LMI's EIR boards have a taper to them, while StewMac's don't. Otherwise, LMI gets my money.
I also prefer LMI's truss rod selection to StewMac's.
But I'm stateside, so the tarrif charges aren't a problem for me.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I am trying to source any wood locally, because I hate paying 200 dollars for a few board foot of lumber and possibly tariff on top of that. For electric guitars I don't know where to get ash or alder locally, those are "exotic" here and it makes no sense to build them from Narra or Pheasantwood because the guitar would weight a ton. I can use mahogany though... for lighter density I guess I can try Paulownia but they feel like balsa wood..

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Yes, we have it easy here in the states compared to many other areas of the world. I'm thankful for that. I doubt I would have ever tried to build in the first place were I anywhere else.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

The new site seems to fairly easy to navigate, and looks cleaner.
I didn`t have any trouble with the old site after I spent some time just window shopping, and then making purchases after I thought I had it figured out for the most part, though.
I think the new version will do as well if not better than the old one.
Coe Franklin

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,